VEDA #4 Is it worthwhile to go to Burning Man? (about 8 minutes viewing time)

(Blurry video because it was on Auto setting late in the day. It’s a learning process. It’s all good.)

The following is the transcript from my fourth day of VEDA (Vlog Every Day in April):

Hi, today’s been really windy so hopefully there won’t be a lot of wind noise with us. Welcome to my world again of Penguin’s Wanderlust .com. And ah, hold on a sec (picked up Rover, my puppy). So I almost didn’t want to do today because it’s been so windy and I thought that the sound probably wouldn’t carry that well. I put it off and I wrote another blog article so I figured well I’d come out here and do this.

How do you want to spend your holiday?

So today I thought I’d talk about what some people are saying”Is it worthwhile to go to Burning Man?” I think the answer is “It can be.” But it isn’t the only event in the entire world or the only thing you could do with your holiday.

Reason why you would want to go to Burning Man:

Popular Choice

One seems to be everybody and their dog wants to go to Burning Man. Doggies aren’t allowed because it’s the desert and it’s not a kind environment. It’s the thing to do. Everybody does it these days.

Ticket Scarcity and New Burners

The trouble with everybody doing it is that it’s hard to get tickets now. Half of the attendees over the last couple years have been brand new burners. They’ve never actually been to Burning Man before.

Some people say you’re a burner already if you’ve been to local regionals and it’s perfectly true. A lot of the same sorts of things happen at them as happen at the Big Burn. So some of the newcomers that come are already burners but it’s their first time.

Other brand new people come and they don’t have any background in the Burning Man community at home. I suggest it’s a good idea to get involved with your own people at home because you can go and you can make a camp by yourselves and you can decide what yours is doing.

Theme Camps

The British burners have an article on how to prepare for Burning Man. They say that you should try to get into a theme camp.

There are really two types of theme camps:

There are the placed theme camps that have to offer more than one party per week.

There are the non-placed theme camps.

You can decide to go with your friends and have a theme camp. You can figure out a funny name and what you’re going to offer. Like maybe you’re just going to have finger-painting in the afternoons with lemonade. That’s an activity.

There’s a book that you can register your activities with. There’s also a spot on the web page where you can put in your activities. As long as you tell them early enough before they get stuff printed and that. There are many more activities at Burning Man than ever make it into the printed version.

So it’s good to take a look at the online version of activities before you go and make notes.

But you can get together with your friends and you can design a theme camp. You might have to be a little bit farther out than the placed camps but it’s certainly better than just camping by yourself. Some people do that. But if you’re camped by yourself what are you offering as a participant to Burning Man? Because really everyone is supposed to be a participant and everyone should be doing something.

Volunteer

As a Lamplighter

So if you go by yourself and you’re not part of a theme camp then you can go and participate as a Lamplighter which is nice because you just turn up on the day and you don’t have to prebook it.

As a Temple Guardian

To be a Temple Guardian you have to prebook it before you go to the Playa. So one of my first times when I was a Temple Guardian, there was an incredible dust cloud, and it was really hard to find my way to the Temple in time for my shift.

Or if you’re new – don’t volunteer at all

They also say that sometimes it’s better if it’s your first year at Burning Man, not to volunteer because you don’t really know how hard it is to get around the city, and you don’t really know how you’re going to be feeling when you’re there. The heat might just exhaust you too much. You have to be a little careful about what you volunteer for.

Same Old Art

The first year I went, there were some people from my town that said they only ever go every other year. What they found when they went every year was that a lot of the art was the same from year to year. I certainly found that. So it’s not necessary to go every year. You might go for a few years in a row just until you kind of get it out of your system.

I’m going this year. I got a ticket. Last year we took off. But I’m looking forward to it this year.

Regional Events

You can check out – there are regional events all around the world and they’re really well worth checking out. You can’t say that they’re better than (I meant not as good as) the Big Burn in Nevada because they’re so completely different.

I had met someone at a regional burn early on and she told me she preferred to go to the regionals instead of Burning Man. She had gone to Burning Man as part of a giant group and she felt really really alone there. And that’s true. You can definitely feel alone there.

Easier to make friends at a regional

You have more chance of making friends at a regional which is smaller and you get to spend more time with your new friends than if you meet someone once at Burning Man and then you can’t find them again because with 72,000 people it’s really hard to be in the same spot and to meet people.

“Oh, the Places You’ll Go at Burning Man!”

So one thing that you might want to do is to look up on YouTube, look up Burning Man and Dr. Seuss. Tedshots made a film (in 2011 on Playa) based on Dr. Seuss’s last poem and it’s called “Oh, the Places You’ll Go at Burning Man!”. Some of my friends from Victoria and Vancouver are in it because they were out about to do the fire perimeter for the CORE (Circle of Regional Effigies) project when they were filming. So it’s kind of neat because some of my friends are in it.

Here’s the link for “Oh,The Places You’ll Go at Burning Man!”.

Here’s another video you might enjoy “Are you going to Burning Man this year?”.

Anyway if you have any questions, just leave them as comments and I will address them. And I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Bye!